The Role of Interest Groups in the European Union Decision-Making Process

Most of the economic models that analyse the behaviour of interest groups in the policy making process uphold the idea that there are many organized groups that compete, with the aim of achieving their individual goals. The adoption of decisions is the result of a complex system of strategic interactions, and since different groups have different resources at their disposal this makes it easier for one or more groups to influence whether or not a policy is adopted. This research demonstrates that an institutional system such as the European Union (EU) should be able to protect us from the potential manipulation, which accompanies these channels of influence.     

Are Colombian sickness funds cream skimming enrollees? An analysis with suggestions for policy improvement

One of the primary objectives of Colombian social health insurance reform was to increase competition among for-profit insurers. Unfortunately, the flat capitated formula creates an opportunity for sickness funds to maximize reimbursement gains by cream skimming--selecting against unhealthy individuals. This paper explores sickness fund selection behavior to evaluate the efficiency losses associated with the introduction of managed competition in Colombia. Data from a 1997 Colombian household survey are analyzed with a bivariate probit model with partial observability using instrumental variables. The model yields some evidence of sickness fund selection based on health status. Public policy options to discourage risk selection by health status are discussed.     

University technology transfer and the evolution of regional specialization: the case of Turin

The Journal of Technology Transfer - The paper is aimed at obtaining a better understanding of the role played by universities in the technological development and specialization of the territories...     

The Roots of Global Inequality: The Role of Biogeography and Genetic Diversity

This paper adds further evidence supporting Jared Diamond’s hypothesis that global technological differences in the pre-modern era were fundamentally due to bio-geographic factors: the time elapsed since the onset of agriculture and husbandry, the size of the population relative to the territories, the shape of continents. An alternative hypothesis, that genetic diversity within populations is the ultimate cause of global inequalities, is also examined. Results show how there is no robust evidence supporting a possible effect of genetic diversity on international differences in population density and technology in the pre-modern era.     

Reforming the state: The policy of administrative reform in Italy under the Ciampi government

Since 1992, administrative reform has become a major theme on the Italian political agenda. This article examines the pressures leading to reform under the Ciampi government (April 1993‐May 1994). It focuses, first, on the directions to be taken by reform that were identified and, second, on their implementation. Also considered are the obstacles to reform found in the political and administrative systems. The limits to the reform and its legacy illustrate the more general problems of the Italian legal and constitutional order.     

Mediated territoriality: rural workers and the efforts to scale out agroecology in Nicaragua

The Spanish word formación can be translated as ‘training’ or ‘education’, but Latin American social movements use it as inspired by Che Guevara’s notion of ‘molding’ the values of the new woman and new man for egalitarian, cooperative social relations in the construction of a ‘new society’. This contribution presents findings on the dialectical linkages between the formación processes led by the Rural Workers’ Association (ATC) and the gradual transformation of the Nicaraguan countryside by peasant families choosing to grow food using agroecological practices. We use Vygotsky’s sociocultural historical theory to explore the developmental processes of formación subjects and the pedagogical mediators of their transformation into movement cadre. The motivations of active learners to develop new senses and collective understandings about their material reality become a counterhegemonic process of internalization and socialization of agroecological knowledges and senses. In this paper, we further explore the formación process by identifying territorial mediators: culturally significant elements within and outside of individuals that facilitate the rooting of agroecological social processes in a given territory where the social movement is active. By placing the territory, rather than the individual, at the center of popular education processes, new synergies are emerging in the construction of socially mobilizing methods for producing and spreading agroecological knowledge.     

Russia,Europe and the Ontological Security Dilemma: Narrating the Emerging Eurasian Space

Abstract

The aim of this essay is twofold. First, it seeks to examine how Russia and the European Union understand the emerging Eurasian space. We will do this by looking at how the two narrate the space, the use of power and each other. Second, we want to argue that the narratives at the heart of the conceptual and normative maps that guide their actions and behaviour create an essentially ontological security dilemma; that is, behaviour aimed primarily at enhancing confidence in the identity and continuity of a political community threatens the ontological security of other actors.     

Dynamic-opportunistic behaviour in local government contracting-out decisions during the electoral cycle

A major question for public managers is whether municipal services should be rendered in-house or contracted out. In view of the negative perceptions often aroused by contracting out, this political decision might be framed within a theoretical model that we term ‘dynamic-opportunistic behaviour’. According to this model, the probability of municipal services being contracted out is greater in the years immediately following elections; moreover, during this period the decision is taken more quickly. In this theoretical model, not all factors (budgetary, economic, political, service characteristics and socio-economic) have an equal impact on the contracting-out decision during each year of the electoral cycle. The model was applied to a sample of 2,274 Spanish municipalities, with respect to a broad time horizon (2002–2014), and the results obtained confirm our hypotheses regarding dynamic-opportunistic behaviour in the contracting out of local public services.